


Oh my Queen, we are here again

by lackingsoy, starryxdjh



Series: kevin day centric fics [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Attempted Suicide, Baltimore, Hurt/Comfort, Kevin Day deserved better, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, bc fuck sakavic, did i mention angst? major angst, is mentioned, kevin day gets validated, kevjean, mayhaps kerejean? hahah jk............unless, the choking scene, uno THAT one in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26138653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackingsoy/pseuds/lackingsoy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryxdjh/pseuds/starryxdjh
Summary: Painkillers, a bottle of rum, and a dead end of a mouth.That was all it took to land Kevin Day in the hospital.That was what it took for Andrew to be the first one out of his chair when Kevin appeared in Wymack's living room. That was what it took for Neil to sit up straight and stare into the brokenness of Kevin Day and finally flinch in the face of it.
Relationships: Kevin Day & Aaron Minyard, Kevin Day & Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day & Jean Moreau, Kevin Day & The Foxes (All For The Game), Kevin Day/Jean Moreau, Past Kevin Day/Andrew Minyard
Series: kevin day centric fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866139
Comments: 19
Kudos: 95





	Oh my Queen, we are here again

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: attempted suicide attempt implied, with heavy undertones. Past abuse is mentioned by several characters. Nothing too graphic is detailed, but beware.
> 
> This is post-TKM and assumes Kevin’s (reasonably expected) deterioration, re: a few months after into the next academic year. Strays considerably from what Sakavic has said takes place in the EC. 
> 
> For context: Aaron is the one who gets to Kevin. In time.
> 
> Disclaimer: if this isn't your cup of tea at any point, close the tab. This is simply an alternative perspective that stemmed from a few ‘what if’s...?’ discussed between the co-authors. Kevin’s character is colder here than what we see thru Neil's eyes in canon, but that’s a direct result of his mistreatment and neglect by the foxes, Riko's death, and all that lovely unresolved trauma. Man’s TIRED asf, let him be bitter.

Painkillers, a bottle of rum, and a dead end of a mouth.

That was all it took to land Kevin Day in the hospital.

That was what it took for Wymack to fall into a steep silence, gripping the wheels with white-knuckled hands on the drive back. That was what it took for Andrew to be the first one out of his chair when Kevin appeared in Wymack's living room. That was what it took for Neil to sit up straight and stare into the brokenness of Kevin Day and finally flinch in the face of it.

That was what it had to take.

Months of being cut loose and cast aside and set adrift--and trying to kill himself was what finally made them give a shit. 

Nicky's voice quavered in the heavy silence like a watery little thing. "Oh, Kevin."

Kevin barely registered that or Abby’s hands on him, taking him down into a chair, arranging his arms with a care and gentleness only Neil ever seemed to receive. He couldn't even speak. Just turned a deadened look on the whole of the room. 

Neil was gripping both hands with obvious strain. Andrew had sunken back into his seat next to him, the impassive expression there wavering when Kevin met his gaze. He saw Andrew glance down at his armbands that hid evidence of his self-harm, then back. 

Kevin looked away. They were not the same. Couldn’t be.

Not with their history.

They were all there, the Foxes, after receiving belated news of his attempted suicide: an obligatory role call. Dan and Matt leaned into each other in the corner, looking sick; Renee held Allison and they shared the same blank expression; Nicky and Aaron stood chalk-white and frozen at the hips; and Andrew and Neil, who watched him steadily, as if he might break. Again.

No more, Kevin thought. 

Wymack finally cleared his throat. "The doctor said it was okay for him to be back tonight." He told the room, voice only a little strained. "Said we'll have to bring him back for some follow-up exams, but. For now, he's here to stay."

“He's not." 

The voice came from the doorway, which Wymack had left open in his haste to aid Kevin. All heads, including Kevin's, turned to see who had just spoken.

Jean, red-faced and indignant, clutched at the door frame. He was taking quick, shallow breaths, eyes boring into the stretch of the room. He looked furious, twisted and sweaty with it. 

He was the most beautiful thing Kevin has ever seen.

And for the first time since entering the room, Kevin opened his mouth to speak. "Jean," he said, whispering it, voice raspy and abused from all the piping they shoved down his throat. Instantly, Jean's eyes caught his and he stalked over, face going hard and taut as he took in Kevin's haunted face and haggard state.

"Kevin," was the only thing Jean managed to grit out before Kevin was reaching for him, open-palmed and open-mouthed. They collided in a force of estranged limbs, and the weight and feel of Jean was so familiar against him Kevin couldn't stop the sob from creaking out of him, his hands from going numb from the sheer amount of strength he was putting into keeping Jean locked along his length. He felt so real there.

"Jean," he repeated, already feeling his eyes burn. Jean just tugged him up, making Kevin stand on his own two feet and lean all his weight against him, taking Kevin unto him with complete ease. 

"I'm here," Jean said, voice rough with it. "Mon précieux, I'm not going anywhere." Kevin just shook his head against the grain of Jean's stubble and breathed the old-car leather from his shirt and skin, and couldn't bring himself to speak. They stayed like that for several moments longer, and in that time he heard nobody breathe a sound.

Finally, Jean’s head lifted from the crook of his neck. "He's coming with me," his voice, steel-eyed and unflinching and which left no room for argument, told the rest of them. 

Wymack gave a stunned sound. "What? No. _No._ Not now he isn't, Moreau. He still needs to be weaned off all the painkillers he took."

At that, Kevin fisted his hands into Jean's jacket and stopped breathing. Against his temple, Kevin felt Jean clench his jaw and snarl, his entire face moving for it. When he spoke again, his voice was the peak of a rumbling mountain: "Do not speak. Do not speak of any of it, any of you, for you haven't the faintest idea of doing it without traumatizing him further." 

Jean's hand ran down Kevin’s nape, then, in a faint, tentative rendition of what he’d done after Riko hurt one or both of them, curling his fingers very lightly into the stray hairs at the ends. 

A tiny reminder. _Breathe._

Kevin let his exhale reverberate through the both of them.

"I've already sent Coach Rhemann the details hours ago," Aaron’s casual lilt remarked, from his side of the room. All of the Foxes turned on him. In the face of surprise, betrayal and stirring anger, he just shrugged, unfazed. "Should've set up everything on their end by now." Aaron cast a look Kevin’s way when he finished. The ends of his lips curled.

"Yes," Jean's voice evened out a little as he gave Aaron his full consideration, the faintest smear of gratitude there in the once-over. "The arrangements have already been made with the local hospital. Kevin will be well taken care of."

"When will you be back?" Nicky said. Then, at whatever he saw in Jean's face, swallowed and tried again: "Will he? Be back?"

Kevin moved to separate himself from Jean's shoulder to respond and felt Jean's palm at his shoulder blades, a lightly laid obstacle. Kevin could turn his shoulders a few degrees to the left and break it. He stared at Jean through the sides of his eyes. Closed his throat.

Jean looked back at him. "Not until he gives the say so," he answered, without looking away from Kevin.

"Wait, what?" Dan. "Can he--do that? Just take Kevin away from us for God knows how long?"

Jean finally tore his gaze away from Kevin's to level a glare her way. "Even if I couldn't, I would. Leaving him here in your incompetent hands would be the worst choice in any and all scenarios."

"What?" Dan again, this time with a kind of rise and indignation that Kevin thought she didn't merit. "Moreau, what right do you think you have to walk in on the Foxes’ business like this? He’s _ours._ "

Jean’s eyes clouded over. “You dare to ask what right I have?” He let go of Kevin’s nape to swing his arm around, jabbing an index at her. “I have every fucking right, Wilds. Kevin is no longer in the nest, but somehow he is still being ridiculed and kicked around by the people closest to him.

"You people--the _Foxes_ ,” he spat the name of their team, mascot, and symbol with such vile disgust Kevin could see the way Wymack’s shoulders went back, the way Neil’s mouth drew tight, the way Matt’s eyes dropped away. “Are nothing but a sham. I had the actual naivete to believe otherwise until,” Jean broke off, looked back at Kevin, face crumpling. “Until two days ago. You were supposed to give him a place amongst you, as--family, friend, whatever. Somebody _. Anybody._

A low, frustrated noise through clenched teeth. "You were supposed to be _good_ for him. What he has gotten is anything but. If I had known about how badly you treated him here, I would've dragged him to USC a long, long time ago.” 

“How, exactly, do we mistreat him?” Dan’s voice, bright and sharp, picked up the heat and the accusation right where Jean left it torn open and face up at their feet. She was the only one who was quick enough. “When he came to us fresh out of Riko’s claws, we took him in--helped him get back to where he belonged: on the Court. As a Fox. We were the ones who warded the Ravens off, we were the ones who dealt with their fanatic fan club. We _shielded_ him! We did what we needed to."

Dan brushed off Matt's hand and stared down Jean from across the room. "So don’t talk down to us about how we don’t treat him right. We all have our own issues, Moreau, but we deal with them. And we dealt with his _fine_.”

Jean’s fists were clenched from the mention of Riko, Kevin knew, and probably also from the insinuation of no wrong in Dan’s comeback. 

“And where was that attitude after Riko's death?” Jean asked, with an incredibly calm vehemence that forced Dan’s jaw to click shut. “I know firsthand how despicable he was; I suffered at his hand for years. But how is it that when Kevin told me he was grieving, I was the only one who considered it a natural thing? A properly warranted reaction?” 

At this, Neil jerked his head down and stared at a point between his shoes. So did half of the room. Andrew watched Jean and Kevin with a dark, solemn look on his face. Dan kept her chin up by sheer force of will. 

“The Riko I knew gave me nothing but pain, but the Riko Kevin knew?” Jean shook his head, long and slow, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “I was never disgusted or annoyed or angered by the way he reacted, and Riko tortured me since I was old enough to lift a racquet. But you miserable lot?”

He sneered at them, all of them, passing his gaze over each of them as if to thrust his hands into the meat of them and throttle their souls.

“You all were so repulsed. Why? Was it really because Riko Moriyama was an abusive prick? You clearly do not care enough about Kevin Day for that to be the decisive reason. So was it because he tortured Josten that one time over winter break?”

Jean’s teeth bared, and the sound that tore from his throat made Neil go white. Andrew shifted as if to stand, eyes narrowed and potentially murderous. But Jean turned on the both of them with unchanged fury. “Is that it? Because I was there. Neil Josten, what you suffered was terrible and that is undeniable. But consider this: that was only a mere modicum of what Riko actually had in store for you.” 

Jean gave the rest of the room his attention again, and Kevin had to shut his eyes. He heard somebody let out a muffled sound, like a sob; somebody else ground their teeth together. “Josten suffered for two weeks in the Nest and you people felt fierce enough to claim him, but the knowledge of Kevin being abused for a _decade_ didn’t?” 

A breath; another hitch of chest; an actual snivel. Jean’s voice turned low and mutable. Almost soft, almost brittle, until it cracked just a little: “Riddle me an answer, Captain. Coach. Any one of you. Justify it to me. Justify it to _him_.”

"Jean." Renee's clear voice punctured the room. “Please.”

Jean leveled his eyes at her, considering her. Whatever he saw there must convince him to let her continue, because Renee faced her teammates without any further argument, stone-faced and eyes dark with regret.

Walker was never been obliged to protect any of Andrew’s lot. Only her own: Allsion, Dan, Matt. But Kevin was no longer part of the Monsters. That title came hand in hand with Andrew Minyard’s promise of protection--something Kevin lost long ago.

The point: he was no longer part of anything else, here. Not with the Monsters or the upperclassmen or the Foxes or his father.

Renee looked pointedly at Dan, and said: “Jean's right: we were supposed to be better. The right thing to do now is to listen to what he has to say."

Jean shot her a look, part peeved and part accusatory, but at Renee's coolly returned expression, he turned back to Dan and took a long breath, anger partially reined in. "He does not belong here, not when your team has not deigned to give him a shred of support or anything else he deserves. Not when you have only exasperated his state to the point of--”

Jean forcefully cut himself off. Took another steadying breath. Turned his eyes on the only person who mattered in the room. “Know that I am taking him because you leave me no choice. And he will be better off for it. Am I understood?"

"Jean," Neil's voice, trained and carefully neutral, rose from its silence, any remnant of his previous remorse and fear temporarily cleaved from view. "It's the middle of the school year. You will be taking him from the high of Exy season."

When Jean turned to face Neil and by extension, Andrew, Kevin twisted so he could see them, too. Neil's eyes were on Jean unflinchingly, but Andrew's were on Kevin. 

"You believe bringing Exy into this will convince me to let him stay? Will make him want to?" Jean sounded so incredulous it made the edges of Kevin's mouth twitch in recognition. "He almost lost his life for what he gave for the game. For what he gave to _you,_ Neil Josten," and finally a flicker of fear dodged across Neil's eyes, a full-bodied grimace drawing up his shoulders. 

"Do not delude yourself and think not a single one of you isn't complicit in driving him to do what he did. Them, though," Jean waved a hand at the rest of the Foxes, sharp and dismissive. "I did not expect a thing. But you, Josten.” His face went cool and hard, like a perfect gemstone designed for the Court Riko had imagined for them. “I expected more from you, #4." 

The call back to Evermore and the mark Riko had left on him made Neil's eyes snap up and narrow. Made Andrew go taut next to him. Andrew's attention was on Jean, now, and this time Kevin didn't bother smothering his smile, the smallest and perhaps the most baleful of its kind.

"Enough, Jean." Kevin said, his hand rising and resting over Jean's elbow.

Jean gave him a look, grim with all the workings of hostility and menance, but his body relented under Kevin's hand. He shook his head. "Do not try to cover for them, Kevin. They do not deserve it."

“I’m not. You remember what I told you during our call, and that’s more than good enough. I just want to go.”

At this confirmation of his leaving, Neil rose back up, standing fully from his chair, panic sliding through the faux-calmness of his voice. “Kevin, you-”

“Save it, Neil.” Kevin looked at him, feeling nothing at the fright he saw there. He was too tired. Tired of all of them and their particular brand of ignorance and non-understanding and uncaring. "This is your home, always has been. I imagine it’ll stay that way.” Kevin slid his eyes to Wymack’s, saw the contorted regret and confusion there, and continued: “But it wasn't mine.”

The rest of them didn’t say a thing. Couldn’t. Wymack looked grief-stricken; Renee and Aaron looked resigned; Allison and Abby stared at the carpeted floor; Nicky was openly crying; Matt wouldn’t look him in the eye; Dan stared at him like he was a stranger.

Neil and Andrew looked at Kevin like he had just climbed out of his own grave.

Good, was his only thought, and let Jean grip his wrist in a circling of fingers. “Come. Let us gather your essentials and leave.” 

Kevin nodded, and made to move past his father who was not really one at all, all while shrugging off the lingering gazes of Nicky, Dan, Matt, Allison, Abby, and Renee. 

Then his sleeve caught on something stiff. Kevin looked down. 

Andrew stared up at him, something shifting in the dark of his eyes, small and strained as if wrestling with a beast. Once upon a time, Kevin would’ve done anything to get Andrew to look at him like that--like there was something more to him, something else to puzzle out. To hold and wonder at. 

But he was done giving chase. “Let go,” Kevin told Andrew, steel and something a bit more brittle filtering through. Jean stood at his back, irritation and cooled anger rolling off him in waves. Andrew’s eyes flicked to him, gauging the threat, then back to Kevin.

“I want you to stay,” he said, perfectly futile. 

Kevin stared at him, disbelief rising in him like a tidal wave. “You told Neil to stay,” he said, the memory of anger shimmering over him like the end of summer. Beside Andrew, Neil's body went taut as if to flinch again, but wasn’t sure about what actual guilt looked like. "You never asked for me, remember? You chose Neil Josten and buried Nathaniel Wesninski and Kevin Day. Didn’t you?"

Kevin smiled, and Andrew’s fingers fell away. Kevin tapped his calluses against the dark skin of his neck: once for the pulse that remained, and another for the time it stopped, in Baltimore. Watched Andrew watch him do it. “Didn’t you, Andrew?”

Andrew swallowed, impassive mask flickering to dust to reveal an actual hint of--regret? Sadness? Hate?--before smoothing over. His lips closed over his teeth. His hand fell unmoving into his lap. “I know,” he said, a cracked open geode, not yet choked but coming very, very close to it.

Kevin thought he might feel a stab of vindication at it, this concession of his--some sort of twisted victory; to see Andrew broken down and bowed. But he felt nothing. 

He gave all that away a long time ago. 

To this boy Kevin once loved with the magnetic force of the stars and sun and moon combined, so far and so desperate he was willing to throw every inch of himself to keep the fire of their relationship’s remains going just that bit longer. Kevin stared down at Andrew and saw their departure as clear as day, and wondered, tiredly, with grave-deep exhaustion: what else could have they become, beyond a broken lifeline of a promise and the phantom traces of five fingers on Kevin’s neck?

He didn’t ask. Didn’t dare to speak it into existence.

“You don’t have to protect me anymore, Andrew.” Kevin said, finally. It was a kindness, he supposed, leaving the truth here at their feet so that neither of them needn’t carry it with him like a dead child or a used blade. “You were shit at it, anyway.”

A ruined little sound pried itself from Andrew’s throat, final and lasting, and then Kevin could look at him no longer.

Kevin turned to Neil. “Baltimore means two different things to us, Nathaniel,” he said to him in French. Neil’s eyes churned black, almost wet-like. Kevin smiled, thin and tight, at the blue he could pick out from there. 

“This is goodbye, Neil,” Kevin said. “I don’t regret picking you out of that shitty court in the dirt of Arizona. Especially if it meant I kept up my end of the deal.” 

He did not look at Andrew--and despite the perfectly crowned chess piece he now wore, felt the brand of number two like a scar on his face, blatant to any one who ever looked twice at him. It was clear to him now that that’s all he would ever be at Palmetto. 

“You have the talent and the grit to go pro. Work on your footwork, play like you don’t know what it means to die without a fight, and maybe one day I’ll see you again.”

Neil stared into the face of him and Kevin could see the exact moment something shattered in him. He twisted his lips shut, yanking on his long healed scars, and silenced the low cry Kevin could see building in the back of his eyes.

“This is really it.” Neil said. Kevin turned shoulders and finally walked away, chin held up. He thought he heard Neil’s whisper behind him, choked and raw: “See you on the Court.” 

Leaving them behind burned him like Riko’s death once had, sharp and searing and enduring. He imagined he would mourn them in some way, too, for what they gave him and for what they didn't and for what they could have but refused to.

But, he imagined, with the heat of Jean's hand in his and USC's Court in the distance, Kevin would move on soon enough.

So when Aaron stepped into line with him and Jean, Kevin just slanted a curious look at him. Jean scowled at him from over Kevin's shoulder. Aaron looked back at them, unimpressed.

"One less Exy fanatic in the house is always a plus," he said in lieu of goodbye.

"I'll keep in touch." 

"Just let me know when you make it back," Aaron said, seeing the lie for the common platitude it was. "Then you can do fuck-all."

"Deal," Kevin said. It was a good deal. "Help me pack."

"Okay," Aaron said.

"I'll go with you," Jean said. Kevin shook his head. 

"It's fine, Jean. Two people will do." 

Jean looked at Kevin, then glared at Aaron, whom promptly scoffed.

"I know, okay?" Aaron told Jean. "I'll bring him back no less emotionally damaged than before."

Jean didn't ease up his glare. "Fine. Be quick about it, Minyard. Knox is out in the back."

Kevin raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Jeremy's here too?"

Jean turned back to him and made a distinctly annoyed sound, face screwing up in a scowl. "He made me take him because I couldn't be allowed to drive for," two sharp air quotes, "health and safety reasons."

Aaron snorted. Kevin gave a similar sound, then at Jean's clear irritation, touched his forearm. "Don't worry," in French. "I'll be back soon."

Jean stared at him, then at the hand Kevin had on his arm, then visibly softened. "Be safe."

Kevin nodded, and Aaron started off. He followed. They met no one on the way.

Once in the dorm, they worked in companionable silence, back-to-back. Kevin organized his books, Aaron folded his clothes. Kevin crammed his Jane Austen books, laptop, and Exy binders into his backpack; Aaron shoved his pants and dress wear into a duffel bag. Kevin picked out his running shoes, crumbly with dried dirt, from the shoe rack at the front door, eyes passing over Neil's red ones and Andrew's blackened ones. Aaron was studiously and unceremoniously dumping empty rum bottles and liquor store receipts into a black trashbag when Kevin walked back into the room.

"You should have left a long time ago," Aaron said, over the clicking and clashing of glass.

Kevin shoved his shoes in a plastic bag, and felt inexplicably tired. "My dad was here, Aaron. I really did believe we could"--he was not just talking about Wymack--"have something.”

Aaron looked at him for a long minute, then holstered the bags onto both of his shoulders. "Come on. Let's get you out of here."

Kevin couldn't say anything to that, so he didn't and just heaved his backpack up and followed Aaron out. Aaron inconspicuously cleared a path for him through the hall where the remaining Foxes had gathered, but who tentatively shuffled aside once Kevin came into view.

When Matt opened his mouth, though, Kevin saw Aaron tilt his head at him, and Matt stared at whatever was in his face for a short few seconds before clamping his lips back up. Nicky attempted to take some weight from Aaron, but Aaron just shouldered him out of the way. Andrew and Neil were nowhere in sight.

Kevin left without casting a single look back.

They doubled back to Jeremy's Toyota, Jeremy noticing their approach immediately and Jean coming to meet them halfway, taking a bag from Aaron's hands.

"Hey," Jean said, soft and gentle, aimed at Kevin, and his chest tightened.

"Hey," Kevin murmured. When Jean took his left hand into his free one, Kevin didn't pull away. Jeremy just aimed a knowing grin their way over the roof of his hideous car and Jean just muttered, "Shut up, Knox."

"What? I'm looking respectfully."

A groan came from behind them. Aaron. "Can't you people wait until I'm gone?" and Jeremy gave a huge, bright laugh, and Jean scowled in his severe, nose-pinching way, and then finally, Kevin's lips curved and a smile cracked across his face.

It was tiny and precious and terribly unused, but it stayed long after Aaron left; held when Jeremy started the car; and broadened, just a little, when Jean squeezed his hand. 


End file.
